Shout in the Dark (38 page)

Laura cleared the line of buses without
getting a trace of orange paint on the Alfa. "You're
jealous."

"
No, I'm not!" He knew his face had colored up.

Laura was waiting for the first sign of a
green light so she could be away before the black Peugeot on their
left. From her attitude at the wheel she was about to make a
breathtaking turn across the front of it.

Marco braced himself. "Where are we
going?"

"
We're meeting Riccardo for a drink. You should show him a
bit more sympathy. Bruno was his best friend."

He recoiled at the prospect of socializing
with Riccardo. He was suspicious of everyone at present, perhaps
even of Laura. "I told you, I don't think we should trust Riccardo
Fermi."

"
Are you jealous of his good looks?"

"
Why should I be jealous of his looks? He's nothing
special."

She laughed. "Prove you're not jealous.
Come and meet Riccardo again. I won't tell him what you said. You
worry too much, that's your problem."

The lights changed. Laura accelerated --
and turned sharp left.

KARL
BEGAN to shake with nervous energy. The Alfa slipped
between the buses. The gap closed, leaving him stranded. Brake
lights came on and a few cars sounded their horns, but the priest
and the woman were getting away.

He had no choice but to cut left across
two lanes of fast-moving traffic. Somehow the audacity of the
maneuver stunned even the toughest Roman drivers and they let him
go. The woman's Alfa was bouncing rapidly through intersection
after intersection, but always the lights remained green long
enough for him to keep it in sight. Finally the Alfa stopped in
front of a building with old green shutters, in a piazza dwarfed by
the most enormous church he had ever seen. It didn't take the
priest long to unload his stuff.

Suddenly there was a tap on the window. A
large woman in uniform was telling him to move on. An orange bus
was trying to come through and he was blocking the way. It would
only take a minute or so to do a quick circuit. He let the clutch
in as soon as the lights went green. Cursing his luck he waited in
a long line, but the Italian drivers were in no hurry for once, and
the lights went red again before all the cars got through. By the
time he came back to the building with the green shutters, the
woman's car had gone.

He waited for a few minutes. He'd lost his
opportunity this time. His best bet was to get some more beer and
return to his new hotel where the clerk, having seen him write
Manfred Kessel in the register when he booked in, kept calling him
Signor Kessel. It was weird but it was necessary to go along with
it if he wanted Herr Kessel's plastic to pay for the
room.

The hotel was of a much higher standard
than the old dump Herr Kessel had booked them into. If Herr Kessel
had been blessed with intelligence he would have stayed in a place
like this. Karl knew he would soon be too useful a member of
Achtzehn
Deutschland Reinigung
to
stay in backstreet hotels. He was using Herr Kessel's card wisely,
and it was unlikely the senior members of the ADR would mind --
even if they found out.

He stretched himself on the large bed and
opened a bottle of beer. A bed like this deserved to be fully
occupied. Maybe he could find a woman and bring her back for the
night. A woman like the one with the silver Alfa. That would be a
lot more fun than having the old
Narr
snoring on the other side of the thin partition in that
cheap hotel off the Via Nazionale. He had enough money left to find
a woman. Rome was not such a bad place after all.

Early in the morning he could throw
the
Hure
out and go
back to the tall house with the green shutters to wait for Sartini.
He counted out the last of Herr Kessel's cash and went for a
walk.

Chapter
33

Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore

MARCO HAD HIS shower before an early
breakfast at his temporary home in the Piazza di Santa Maria
Maggiore.

This was going to be a good day, and Laura
had promised to collect him early. Marco opened the massive front
door as soon as he saw the silver Alfa stopping in the piazza.

"
Ciao
,"
Laura said breezily. "Ready?"

As he settled himself in, Laura started
the engine and turned sideways long enough to establish eye
contact, but looked forward in time to avoid the oncoming moped as
she pulled away from the curb. "We're picking up Riccardo. He wants
to meet my mother again."

This was ridiculous. "Riccardo Fermi? I'm
not having him stuck with us today."

"
It's what we agreed."

"
I
didn't agree to anything."

Laura changed gear clumsily. "There's
nothing wrong with Riccardo. We're journalists, and journalists are
bound to be in places where the news is happening."

He wasn't going to hide his feelings.
"Listen, Laura, if Riccardo gets into this car,
I'm
getting out. That man is bad news for both of
us."

Laura passed a line of stationary traffic
using a non-existent lane up the inside. "You're serious aren't
you, Marco?"

"
Too right, I'm serious. I'll only go to your mother's house
on condition Riccardo Fermi keeps away."

The car slowed. "Then you can tell him
yourself. This is Riccardo's apartment."

Marco nodded. "I don't mind. It doesn't
bother me what he thinks."

Riccardo, all gold rings, smiling teeth
and immaculate hair, swept out of the house. "
Ciao
, Laura." Laura received a kiss and a
wink.

"
Marco's got something to say to you." Laura looked
awkward.

"
Ciao
,
Marco. Good to see you, my friend."

"
Laura's taking me to see her mother," said
Marco.

"
The lovely Signora Rossetti." Riccardo smiled broadly as he
got into the back seat. "We're all going there."

"
No," said Marco firmly. "Just me and Laura."

The Alfa accelerated into the moving
traffic.

Laura twisted round briefly as she drove
away. She put her hand out to Riccardo. "It's okay," she said
softly, "I'll drop you at the bus stop. Go to work and see what you
can find out."

Marco felt compelled to take a dig at
Laura's boyfriend, her
ragazzo
. "Laura's talking sense, Riccardo. You're a reporter. You
ought to be investigating what went on at the Colosseum
yesterday."

The
ragazzo
put his hand on Marco's shoulder and leaned forward,
smiling. "You're right, my friend. The story will go dead if I'm
not in the office. Let us hope you can find the relic. The best of
luck with the signora's letters." He turned to look out of the back
window, his arm still on Marco's shoulder.

Laura had been glancing in her rear-view
mirror. "There's a red car close behind. I'm sure it's following
us."

Riccardo was already looking. Marco didn't
like to turn as well. "It's a small red Fiat," said Riccardo. "Go
left at the end here, across the piazza and out at the far corner.
But don't hurry. Okay, left now ... and right. This will take us
back to the main street."

Marco knew that by turning to look, he would
make it obvious they were suspicious.

The Fiat must still be with them, although
Riccardo said nothing as Laura turned the car sharply back onto the
Via Catania.

"
Now what?" Laura asked.

"
Do you know who it is?" asked Marco.

"
It's the car we saw near the Colosseum, when Bruno was
killed," said Riccardo.

"
You were there?"

"
We're reporters, Marco," said Laura curtly. "Anyway, I told
you I don't want to talk about it."

Riccardo stayed with his arm over Marco's
shoulder, but the tightened fist spoiled his relaxed manner. "He's
... another reporter. Probably hoping we'll lead him to a good
story. It happens all the time."

Whoever the driver was, he certainly
wasn't from the media. Riccardo's hesitation had been the
give-away. Marco guessed he was watching a little play being acted
out for his benefit by two worried journalists. He had no idea why.
It concerned him to think that Laura and Riccardo had been near the
Colosseum when Bruno died, and Laura was still refusing to talk
about her phone call.

Laura swung the car round a tight corner,
tires squealing. "Riccardo and I know who it is. Bruno warned us
about him, and we don't want him following us to my mother's
apartment."

The driver of the little Fiat stood no
chance of staying with the Alfa. Born in Rome and totally familiar
with Roman driving, Laura was able to slip in and out of the busy
traffic. Marco breathed out a long sigh of relief as they turned
undetected into a side street where Riccardo got out.

KARL CURSED THE priest and his friends. If
all he had to do was kill Marco Sartini, then he could do it
quickly. But he needed the priest to lead him to the prize.

He drew into the side of the street and
opened one of the bottles of local beer he'd bought last night. He
pounded the side of the passenger seat. "Look what happened to
those two
Schwachsinnige
who came with me from Germany!"

People who were passing by stooped to look
into the car but he took no notice. They were of no consequence. He
drained the bottle and opened the next one.

He'd been doing a lot of thinking. Hitler
had made a pact with the spiritual forces. This was one of the
first exciting facts they'd taught him at the Total Training
weekends. He remembered the long discussions in the bar with his
personal instructor. Herr Kessel had said very little about the
Shrine, but enough to hint that it would be in Berlin where the
people would call for a new leader.

In the
Movement
's
footsteps must lie a deluge of blood and destruction.

A good one. His instructor's favorite Nazi
teaching from the 1930s. There were others.

Losses sow the seeds of human greatness.

Hitler was right: losses could never be too
high.

It is not possible to have power without
sacrifice.

More of the Führer's teaching. He could
remember a lot from those Total Training weekends.

The silver Alfa had gone -- and so had
the
Priester
. He
laughed aloud and tipped the bottle back. What the hell, he could
be a leading sower of the seeds of human greatness. One day the ADR
might ordain him as the chief priest. Power came through
possession. He and his friends in the ADR could set Europe ablaze.
Fire bombs, Internet hate mail, beatings, killings. He already
owned the sacrificial knife. Chief Priest. It was a precious title.
With new leadership there would have to be important roles on
offer.

Exactly what were the visions Papa had
seen in hospital? He'd taken little notice of his father's inane
chatter at the time. Herr Kessel would probably be able to
remember, but the old fool was dead. He finished drumming on the
wheel and spat out of the window. The beer was putrid. He rammed
the small Fiat into gear.

Otto dead. Herr Kessel dead. The blood was
flowing, though not yet in the right direction. He let the clutch
in with a jolt and joined the traffic to make his way to the house
with the green shutters. Sartini had emerged from there this
morning, so he would probably go back there sometime today. He had
to wait somewhere, and it was safer to wait in the piazza by the
big church than by the old troll's house.

SIGNORA ROSSETTI lived in an old apartment
block of crumbling plaster and stained walls on one of the narrow,
cobbled
vicoli
in this
area that had once been the Jewish quarter, teeming with devout
families until the war.

Marco detected a homely smell of herbs in
the cool air on the bare stone stairs. In the large rooms of the
apartment the aroma turned to a less pleasant blend of damp and
coffee. The overweight and elderly Signora Rossetti was sitting in
a deep red armchair, surrounded by brown velvet cushions that were
trimmed with cream lace.

"
And who is this handsome young man, Laura?"

Laura's mother looked far older than Marco
had expected, at least seventy, and must have been in her early
forties when Laura was born. Canon Angelo had obviously not been
having a fling with some young showgirl. Several chins of fat
rested on an expanse of bare flesh on the old lady's upper chest,
making it hard to imagine that this woman had seduced, or maybe
been seduced by, a man of Canon Angelo Levi's standing.

"
This is Marco, Mamma."

Marco bowed his head in a formal greeting.
In Signora Rossetti he felt there must be something of the Canon's
spirit. Then he noticed the ornaments in the room. "You're
Jewish!"